Sometimes a Dream is Just a Dream

August 17, 2005

If you can view these pictures without shedding so much as a tear, you're simply inhumane. For it or against it, you must feel it. And if you are for it, then just know and feel this pain and never forget what it has been caused for. You must remain eternally vigilant in making sure that this does not go down in history as a grand mistake. If this is a step towards justice, make sure that justice is truly attained. Do not let this end up a mere appeasment of killers.

A dream is a dream. It has nothing to do with reality and exists in isolation, away from the consequences it may have. This is the problem of Israeli settlements adn with the occupation of Gaza and Trans-Jordan (West Bank). The dream of a "Greater Israel" ignores the human crisis it causes.

I am one of a steadily decreasing number of Jews who still believe, perhaps naively, that there is yet a chance for peace with the complete withdrawal to the 1967 border, including the painful ceding of East Jerusalem. Nevertheless, I was raised since I was old enough to be brainwashed with the dream of a Greater Israel and I find the Hitnatkut (Disengagement) very difficult to witness. In the words of one Israeli,

My feeling is that just as a parent will sometimes say 'no' to their child's heartfelt request, here too we've been told 'No' by God, after all our crying and pleading.

I know that the sacrifice of a dream for a greater good cannot be a bad thing. Part of me knows this is the right thing. Another part of me only wants to believe this sacrifce is the right thing.